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Has anyone here done GCSE Latin?

I'm planning on doing it in year 12 and 13.
My school only offers it in soxth form and I was wondering why.

Is it really hard or something?

Reply 1

Vesta

Do you mean your school only offers Latin as an A-level, or do they offer it as a GCSE in years 12-13?

I've done it, just finished :biggrin:

GCSE isn't bad, it's just a lot of monotonous learning of the vocab, tenses and literature. Although some of the poetry and prose are very interesting - I especially like Ovid and Cicero :smile:

Let me know if you need any more help

Reply 2

Leonidas

Latin GCSE is considered one of the harder GCSEs, but this year's papers weren't too hard, I think it was mainly because this was the first year that only OCR was offering Classics.

Reply 3

BigFriendlyEvertonian

I've finished too :biggrin:

It is thought to be harder, but only because of the grammar. Once you've caught onto it Latin is fairly easy to get your head around.

I enjoyed doing the course, it depends what board you sit with for your exams and what papers your teacher decides you should sit, as there is a certain method- they have to choose certain exams if they want to avoid certain topics.

I.e- because i did no coursework this year for Latin I had to do a paper on Roman Life :smile:

Overall, if you can get stuck into doing translations (which are tbh the main body of latin) and enjoy that then I'm sure you'll enjoy Latin as a whole.

But just remember there is a lot of learning you have to do for the poetry and prose part of the exam. You will either be doing Cicero and Ovid, or Virgil-The Aeneid (like me). You'll be spending your time just revising the text as you have to be able to translate it from Latin into English..(your teacher will translate it for you all you have to do is learn it!)

Yeh so overall, it is fairly difficult at first but then you grow to like it more. :smile:

Anyway your school might only offer it at A-Level because they think it might be too difficut for you in Year 11 now :s-smilie:

That's what my school does for Philosophy anyway.

If you need any more help just ask...me before sc29 :wink:

Reply 4

Make_It

Ok, thanks a lot guys.

And I did mean that my school offer the GCSE at sixth form.

We do the OCR one.

And according to the teacher that teaches it, we don't have any coursework.
This is what is included:
Translation from Latin to English.
Knowledge of everyday topics.
Questions on pre-prepared passages from Roman writers.

I think I'm going to do it :biggrin:

Reply 5

fluxxx

Yep, OCR is pretty good. I'm all finishe with Latin now and I enjoyed it, although you do have to get through those points when the lessons are just endless translations. Hehe, but be prepared to learn the literature :smile:

all in all though, good on you for doing it :smile:

it's very satisfactory when you've finished (and hopefully when you get the grade you want!)

Reply 6

prefect-tophat

I finished Latin this year but I actually really enjoyed the GCSE course, sad as I am. The texts were relatively interesting and it's something unusual to have on a uni application because not many schools / exam boards offer it as a GCSE. Be prepared for a difficult first few months, but stick with it.

Reply 7

BigFriendlyEvertonian

OCR is one of the few to offer it I think.

Also it looks good on your uni application as prefect-tophat said, as older unis like Oxbridge and Durham etc love you to have it, and see it in a better light than other GCSEs.

It only starts to get interesting Latin when you get to grips with the grammar..like any other language its enjoyable once you've learnt the ground rules.

Just out of interest, did anyone here do Virgil for the exam?
As that is an example of how if you revise well you can get yourself virtually an A*.

Reply 8

Leonidas

Virgil was a compulsory paper for OCR I think. Don't read too much into what unis think of GCSEs though.

Reply 9

Deipnosophist123

Virgil and Pliny were SO easy. I reckon I got 98%+ on those two, only really lost marks on the Language Papers (lost a few on the second comprehension, and on the harder translation for the next Language paper)

If you learn well, and I mean well, it's a guaranteed A or A* (generally an A*)

Reply 10

Mr Dactyl

BigFriendlyEvertonian

OCR is one of the few to offer it I think.

OCR is the only one to offer it!

Leonidas

Virgil was a compulsory paper for OCR I think.

Not necessarily. You could do selections from the Cambridge Latin Anthology, like me, instead. The course is as follows: Paper One: Compulsory unseen translation, 30%; Paper 2: Compulsory Verse Lit, either Virgil or selections from the CLC; Paper 3: Advanced Translation 20%, partially English to Latin; Paper 4: Prose Lit, Pliny + Cicero and Sallust or Pliny's letters, 20%; Paper 5: Roman Life, choice of one of two topics. You choose to do two from papers three to five.

I quite enjoyed the logic of Latin: once you know the rules and their exceptions, you're set to go. The prose was dead interesting, and the derivations are great. Roman Life was pretty interesting as well, I did Roman Britain. I'm annoyed because my school doesn't do Latin at A-Level, so at tis point I have to stop.

Reply 11

BigFriendlyEvertonian

Mr Dactyl

OCR is the only one to offer it!

Not necessarily. You could do selections from the Cambridge Latin Anthology, like me, instead. The course is as follows: Paper One: Compulsory unseen translation, 30%; Paper 2: Compulsory Verse Lit, either Virgil or selections from the CLC; Paper 3: Advanced Translation 20%, partially English to Latin; Paper 4: Prose Lit, Pliny + Cicero and Sallust or Pliny's letters, 20%; Paper 5: Roman Life, choice of one of two topics. You choose to do two from papers three to five.

I quite enjoyed the logic of Latin: once you know the rules and their exceptions, you're set to go. The prose was dead interesting, and the derivations are great. Roman Life was pretty interesting as well, I did Roman Britain. I'm annoyed because my school doesn't do Latin at A-Level, so at tis point I have to stop.

We did Pompeii instead, but I found Roman Life the most interesting part of Latin lately...and it made me wonder why wasn't I taking classics! :rolleyes:

Reply 12

Vesta

BigFriendlyEvertonian

If you need any more help just ask...me before sc29 :wink:

Reply 13

Vesta

Make_It

We do the OCR one.

And according to the teacher that teaches it, we don't have any coursework.
This is what is included:
Translation from Latin to English.
Knowledge of everyday topics.
Questions on pre-prepared passages from Roman writers.

I think I'm going to do it :biggrin:

Although I didn't like the course at first, I grew to really enjoy it :smile:

I'm personally really hoping for an A*.

The main body is the literature (50% of the whole GCSE), and the translation is 30% and the Roman Life/Coursework/Extra translation is 20%. I personally chose the coursework.

I really enjoyed the literature, although there was a lot to learn (around 170 lines for verse, 100 lines for prose), don't let this put you off, it is manageable. I found what worked best for me was to learn 10 lines a day, every day while I was on study leave. It meant that I knew it really well and was prepared to any of the texts to come up. But also it's quite interesting, going slightly further than the syllabus, to things like what motivated the poet to write what he did, the extra background info etc. It all ties in really well with each other, and makes up a very interesting (IMO) 50% of the course.
The translation, I find, is slightly more boring and monotonous - just learning of the vocab. The tenses you'll easily pick up along the way and the grammar too, although that does take a little revision. But by just knowing tenses and vocab, you can get a perfectly good grade without much grammatical knowledge.
IMO, do the coursework if you are offered the choice, it's relatively easy and saves you having to do more during the exam period. But I think the Roman Life topic/Extra translation papers are only 45 minutes each, so it's not much more.

Hope this helps :smile:

Reply 14

Leonidas

Mr Dactyl